The digital marketing firm Epsilon told its clients on Friday of "an unauthorized entry into Epsilon's email system," insisting it "was limited to email addresses and/or customer names only" and that no other information was at risk, but it's only now becoming clear just how widespread the hack really was, having affected some of the biggest brands and retailers in the world, including, but not limited to Target, Best Buy, Capital One, TiVo, US Bank, Citi, and Walgreens. Basically capitalism is crashing down before our very eyes. Because of email.

That's a slight exaggeration, but the list -- still growing -- is staggering in size and scale. Target said, "Epsilon took immediate action to close the vulnerability and notified law enforcement," but that's too vague for our taste. Target is also warning customers "that their email addresses and names may now be in unsafe hands and is asking customers to exercise care when opening and responding to email," Mashable reports, which seems more honest.

According to the tech blog, there's a pretty wide range of scenarios we consumers could be facing:

At the best, you might see slightly more spam than usual in your inbox. At worst, you might have your email account brute-forced and mined for other sensitive data. In either case, an extra dose of caution and an extra secure password are in order.